“Grahl, my dear master, why not? Come with me! Nowadays, with trains de luxe and floating palaces, it will be pleasant as could be. And at least I should have some one to play for.”
“I ... to travel ... after all? It’s late in the day ... and not exactly the way I had once thought....”
Ormarr sprang to his feet, but sat down again.
“Grahl, you are my friend—the best I have, I think. I must tell you something now—something that has happened to me. Listen: I do not care about the concert tomorrow—it means nothing. Fame is nothing to me now. To tell the truth, I shudder at the thought of going about playing for people I do not know, and should not care to know. Strangers—foreigners! It makes me a piece of common property; one of the artistic wonders of the world. And then to see my name, my portrait, on huge posters everywhere ... read interviews with myself, criticisms of my art—Grahl, the thought of it sickens me. I won’t—I can’t—oh, if only I could get out of it now, before....”
“Why, boy ... Ormarr, my dear lad, what is this? what has come over you? Surely you do not—you could not think of throwing everything away now—burning your ships? Ten years of hard work—yours and mine.... If there were any risk, I could understand perhaps your being afraid ... but as it is ... you have only to show yourself—one first appearance, and the thing is done. No, Ormarr, you could not draw back now. It would be madness—nothing else.”
“That may be. But none the less, that is how I feel. I have lost all desire to show myself, to appear in public. I do not care for any ‘conquest.’ I could do it, I know. But that means that in reality I have already conquered. It is satisfaction enough to me; I need not show myself on a platform to utter strangers who have paid so much for the right to hear me play this or that. Every item on the programme as a right—and extras in return for their applause. No—if you cared, I should not mind playing to you every day, for hours together—to you alone. Or to any others that I cared about. Come back with me to Iceland. I will look after you, be a son to you, take care of you, in every way. But spare me this; release me from the burden of that concert and all that should come after it.”
“Ormarr—you must be out of your senses.”
“Whether or no, I am what I am. And I can’t be otherwise. I am furious with myself too; blind fool that I have been—oh, you don’t know what I feel at this moment.”
Ormarr noticed that Grahl was feeling for his watch.
“Don’t,” he put in hastily. “I don’t want to see any one tonight. I can’t stand it. I don’t know what may happen....”